I think the reason why it works first of all is there's a different level of trust. And basically we both share the same vision. It's a warped vision, but we share it. And I think that we're able to protect that vision more, because the people that come at you try to get you to water down what it is that you see. And that is something that happens.

The hardest thing in the world about making a movie is to satisfactorily end it. We almost always have a couple of different endings in mind, and it's informative to show the audience the different direction you might have gone.

We thought that if he didn't use it at the beginning, it's just not as good a before-and-after picture, you know? 'Cause people do use those words. So we said we better make it as realistic as we can. We better be truthful about it.

Every single person involved with the production learned a lot. I'll tell you what I learned. I've been around people with mental disabilities, but I haven't been around 150 of them at a time. And there's something about it that scares people. I don't think it's just me. It might come from the idea that 'I don't want to stare at this guy,' and it gets to where you don't even acknowledge him. But by the end of the shoot, you totally forgot that a guy had disabilities.